


Tricks of Death

by darkflameoracle



Series: Better to be Hunted With You [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders close third person POV, Anders's cats get mentioned, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aveline Vallen is a Good Friend, Blood, Drinking, Gambling, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mom Friend Aveline Vallen, Purple Hawke, don't read if you don't like anders being a jerk to merrill, donnic and aveline are only mentioned as implied pair, hawke's mabari is wholesome, neither is the gambling, the drinking isn't explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 17:50:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17667266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkflameoracle/pseuds/darkflameoracle
Summary: A blossom of crimson erupts from Hawke’s back, split by two shimmering blades.Anders can feel his heart simultaneously in his throat and sinking deep into his stomach. The three of them – himself, Merrill, and Aveline – were all permitted. It was likely the Arishok had allowed them to see this display in order to collect his body when the Qunari lord was finished with him.- -  -In which Hawke goes down after fighting the Arishok, and Anders fears for his life.





	Tricks of Death

**Author's Note:**

> This is such a universally brutal fight, I thought I'd give my two cents on the matter, and no one can ever have too much hurt/comfort or angst, amirite? 
> 
> My portrayal of Anders does a LOT of mental rumination/spiraling. His life has not been easy; it's been really kinda tragic and traumatic, so he struggles, especially when someone he loves is at risk. It's not anxiety, really, but his life really has him balled up in his anxious nature. It's depressing, really. Don't worry, if you're sticking out for my slow *slow* writing of this series, Anders gets the happiness he deserves at points. <3 I have a chapter planned where he gets a new cat, even. 
> 
> Edited by my amazing beta reader, JYH, who despite knowing nothing of Dragon Age, stuck it out for me to publish this edited.

A blossom of crimson erupts from Hawke’s back, split by two shimmering blades.

Anders can feel his heart simultaneously in his throat and sinking deep into his stomach. The three of them – himself, Merrill, and Aveline – were all permitted. It was likely the Arishok had allowed them to see this display in order to collect his body when the Qunari lord was finished with him.

 _“Hawke!”_ Merrill cries, reaching out to him as the Arishok unceremoniously slicked the twin swords from what might have been their friend’s corpse.

There’s a lack of tears in Anders’s eyes, though there’s also a lack of breath in his lungs. Aveline beside him is actively holding back a struggling, bawling Merrill. She wants to go to him. She wants to run in and launch the Arishok away so that any life remaining in Hawke might yet still. Everything is happening in slow motion. Hawke falls slowly, and his skull hits the ground once, twice, then lies still for far too long. Anders is counting the seconds, he thinks, the heartbeats during which his love lays motionless in the sand, blood pooling around him. Merrill’s pleading lamentations are muffled by the blood thrumming in Anders’s ears.

 _This is unjust,_ he hears Justice somberly echo in the back of his mind, and vibrations of fade-essence burn behind his staring eyes. _It is not your Hawke who deserves to suffer. It is not our purpose, the injustice of this, one such as him..._

Anders only acknowledges his spectral friend with a deep-seated sigh, though he can feel the hollow electricity sparkling to the surface of Justice forcing his way forth through the Fade. Biting his tongue, Anders forces him back. It is like an arm-wrestling match Anders can only win if he steadies his breathing and focuses himself.

Hawke’s been down now five seconds too long, but Anders can see the slightest motion, a bloodied hand clawing into his belt for a knife and trembling hands clawing for a hold to stand upright. With a strong claw of the sand and a mighty scuffle in dirt, Hawke is up again, and Merrill lets herself fall slack against Aveline’s grip in shock. The guard captain nearly drops the tiny elf to the ground then and there. The trio stands stock still, and even Aveline’s eyes are wide. Bending over for a moment, the rogue coughs in a series of three wet rasps, and the Arishok turns, eyes narrowed, but then is Hawke’s time to strike, as soon as he composes himself. One flicked dagger, expertly, blindly (and perhaps luckily) strikes the Qunari lord directly in the eye, and he falls with a ground-shaking mass. Maybe Isabella had taught him a thing or two at the Hanged Man last time they were all together. Maybe it was _entirely_ luck. Either way, now is the time Aveline releases Merrill, who runs to help Hawke down to the dust.

“Aveline!” she exclaims. “Please help us, we need to get him to Anders’s clinic, or back to his home – any of our homes, really, any of them would be fine...” The poor elven mage was doing it again, that nervous babble she dipped into whenever something she cared about was endangered.

Slow, Anders steps forward. “His home is closer and far cleaner than my clinic.”

He’s half lying – it probably isn’t any closer, but it _is_ safer for someone with an open wound, out of the wind and putrid air. Anders doesn’t voice this though; life was hard in Darktown, and he is thankful for Hawke’s home and the way Hawke opened his doors to welcome him. His lies have always been smooth, easy to take for his kindly manner. It’s half the reason he’s escaped Circles across Thedas with such frequency – even the Templars believed the lies for a time.

“You speak as though… _agh! Merrill!_ ” Hawke breaks off as Merrill’s grip hurt him deeper. “Let me… let me sit.” He draws a labored breath. “You all speak as though I have no ears.”

Aveline steps forth, her eyebrows creased in a worried line. “There was a moment, Hawke, that we all thought you dead. Or dying, at least.”

“Bah,” the rogue responds, using his bow as a crutch to stand himself up once more, as if by will of pride to show he was fine. “I’m far heartier than…”

As Hawke trails off and falters, Anders is at his side, holding his hand, doing preliminary checks. He pulls out a potion of elfroot, frantically uncaps it to force the healing medicine down his love’s throat. Already, Hawke’s fingers have taken on the chill of death and his face and cheeks a fever of a body in shock. Out of instinct, Anders pulls off his coat – the only thing available to warm him – and wraps him up in it like it’s a burial shroud.

_Andraste, no. Not him, not again –_

“Aveline, we need you to carry him. His heartbeat is so weak, I don’t know how long he’ll last. The potion will help. But I’m not certain for how long, without bandages. We must hurry.”

She’s silent but dutifully scoops Hawke from the dust as easily as he were a child. Merrill helps by taking his dropped bow, taller than her as it was, in both her hands. (She holds it on her shoulder for balance, and even Anders could admit she looked adorably childish, despite all her depraved naivety.) The three are all quiet as they make their ways through the streets of Kirkwall to Hightown. Somewhere in each of them, they are hoping and praying that the gangs will not come that night, that everything will be quiet as they walk to the old Amell estate. And for once, their prayers are answered. The house, too, is quiet when they enter. Hawke’s mabari smells the blood and the pain his master is in. Even Bodahn, who always greets newcomers into the house, seems to understand something is wrong. The damned dog clings to Aveline as they scale the stair, sniffing at his master’s bloodied gauntlet draped over the knight commander’s arms.

Everyone else files into Hawke’s bedroom, but Anders lingers on the loft. “Orana?” he calls out.

The frail little elf pokes her nose shyly from her room, all eyes and worried creases, and Anders beckons her nearer. She refuses eye contact. Anders supposes in Tevinter it would have been rude to make that eye contact, but it makes him so uncomfortable. He’s always worrying he’s about to say something foul and scare her to fainting, but she did watch her masters die already, so he isn’t exactly sure where he got the idea of her being fazed by such horrors. Girl had probably seen her share of abominations back in the Imperium, too, so even if Justice reared his face she would likely bend to his whim. Or Justice would free her, saying servitude was unjust, or demand Hawke give her a raise or something. Since they’d begun sharing bodies, Anders was never quite sure what _normal_ situations would do to his spirit friend. Vengeance was a fickle thing, after all.

“Is… Is Master Hawke going to die, messere?”

At this point, even Anders isn’t quite sure. The elfroot will surely help a little, but stepping away, Anders isn’t sure things haven’t gotten worse. Anders had survived worse wounds at Amaranthine he had to patch himself, but he was a Grey Warden. Wardens, in his experience, heal better than most men. Something about the Darkspawn blood makes them hardier than normal.

Hawke can’t say the same. Bethany could, but Hawke isn’t his sister.

“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” he says with a smile in his best bedside manner.

It’s the look he gives mothers when he knew their ailing child is, in fact, going to die. Hawke could see through it like glass when lingering around the fringes of his clinic. But it seems to comfort the servant girl, despite the perpetual shiny state of her eyes.

“Please, bring us some clean, cool water in two buckets, and some strips of rags. Something we can use as bandages. If you have to rip up a sheet, do so; I will explain it to Hawke when the time comes.”

“As fast as I can, messere,” she replies with a hasty curtsy.

Orana darts off, and Anders pushes past Merrill into Hawke’s bedroom, where Hawke rests against Aveline’s shoulder. The initial rush of adrenaline clearly has worn off, as Hawke’s face has taken on an ashen quality and he moans like the undead in agony whenever Aveline so much as twitches. Which isn’t much, but her breathing – one small difference in her breath across her shoulders causes him to whimper. Anders makes his approach, and delicately, wordlessly, begins stripping the armor from Hawke’s torso. His hands are steady after many years’ practice with injuries with the Wardens, then years with Fereldan refugees. Hawke quiets down a little now that Anders is here, almost as if his mere presence was enough to signal the rogue to calm himself.

“Once we get this bandaged, it will be better, yes?” Aveline asks. When Anders glances up at her, that worried crease in her brow betrays her friendship with Hawke – the pain she’d feel if she lost him.

“It will be a step,” Anders replies, almost under his breath, and he notices Hawke flicker open his eyes.

“I don’t think…” he slurs, a moment of lucidity over him, “I don’t think anything _can_ make this better.”

“Oh, _lethallin,”_ Merrill manages from the door, her voice like a tremulous song. Anders had almost already forgotten she was there. “Don’t say that. Anders will make you all better. Just like he always does with us.”

 _Just like I always do. It isn’t as if I make things worse_ , Anders reminds himself with a frown. Orana comes bustling through the door with the water and the armful of bandages, enough to wrap Hawke head to toe. It will be better to have all that on hand; Anders will roll it when he gets the chance, but for now he must wrap the wound. Diligently, he stuffs the wound on both sides – he’ll remove it once it stops bleeding and he can mend the flesh together with hard-woven healing spells. It’s quick work, and the moment it’s finished, Anders lays his love back onto the pillows of his bed, propped up the slightest bit, and starts stripping him of the rest of his armor until he’s in only his smallclothes. Once he finishes it all with a blanket, he turns to Merrill.

“I have a job for you.”

“For me?” she asks, confusion in her round eyes.

“Yes,” Anders says, confident despite his continued lie. (He didn’t _need_ her to do anything, really, but get out of his hair so he could treat Hawke, and maybe give him air to breathe.) “I need you to go gather everyone up, all of us that normally accompany Hawke everywhere. Just – tell them what happened. Invite them over for tea here tomorrow morning.”

Merrill, his ulterior motives unbeknownst to her, nods excitedly and scampers off. Bare feet pad down the hall. The door opens and shuts behind her, and again, the house is silent. Anders turns to Aveline, whose green eyes are narrowed in distaste. She is not so naïve to believe the lies he spun for the little elf, and he knows it.

“She isn’t stupid,” Aveline chides.

Anders frowns as he turns back to Hawke to place a damp rag over his fevered brow. “No, I never said she was.”

“But your actions implied it.”

A sigh escapes him. He’s never thought Merrill to be all that bright, perhaps, maybe even a bit _out of touch,_ immature for certain. But he would never call her ‘stupid,’ because she isn’t. It takes a lot of intricate knowledge to deal with demons and survive the encounter without becoming an abomination, and somehow, Merrill has managed it so far, so there has to be _some_ sense in her brain, _somewhere._ Even if she is a blood mage. Even if she thinks that’s okay.

“She would have gotten in the way, and… well, she doesn’t deserve to see Hawke like this. _I_ don’t even want to see Hawke like this,” he says, folding his hand delicately into Hawke’s.

_Good, there’s some heat returning to it. I thought, for certain, for a moment there…_

Aveline might have seen this gesture as a loving one. She must have seen the deepening of the furrow in his brow because the chiding glare melts away to that gentle, motherly smile.

“You’re doing all you can, and that’s enough.”

_But what if he dies? It’ll be on my shoulders – I can’t bear it, Hawke, if you leave me… If you leave me like this…_

Everything he’d ever held dear, everything he’d ever cared about and loved – Mr. Wiggums and Ser Pounce-a-lot, Karl, Justice… and now Hawke, as well, was at risk at his hands.

“Anders,” Aveline calls to him, and it pulls him from his spiraling thoughts for just a moment. She rests a hand on his shoulder. “Hawke wouldn’t want you to fret like this. He’d encourage you to get away from his bedside – make sure he’s alright, of course, but _don’t you dare sit and frown about it!”_ She deepens her voice for her best Hawke impression for the last bit, and it’s just enough to make him smile, if only a little.

Still, the nagging in his mind doesn’t go away. He’s still yet terrified of what might come.

Again the room falls silent. Again, Anders is as attentive as ever he should be to Hawke’s breathing, now steady, now barely rasping. He could probably pull off the bandages to stitch the twin wounds, but Hawke almost looks peaceful now, that crease of pain having melted away from his brow. He knows the ranger needs his rest more than he needs the immediate stitched wounds. So long as he did it within the next few hours, with the bleeding slowed by elfroot in his own clean home and bedsheets, Hawke would live.

It doesn’t take long before the silence is broken by the sounds of the door, a quiet hum of conversation. Anders nearly leaps to his feet – his clinic instincts are about him; the open door usually meant Templars in Darktown, and Templars meant apostates like himself at risk. Aveline takes his wrist to stop him, gives him the motherly look again. Varric is at the door, sobriety marking his typical smiles. It doesn’t surprise Anders Merrill had ran for the dwarf first. Hawke and Varric had been friends for longer than even Anders had _known_ Hawke, back before Bethany had become a Warden, before the Deep Roads expedition… before the Qunari had become a problem. It has been four long years of their acquaintance, but they’re four of the finest years in Anders’s memory. Four years, despite Templars and Justice, where he has had _friends._ People looking out for him, people who’ve admitted they planned on _staying._ And they all meant that. Kirkwall is Hawke and Aveline’s home, at least.

“Daisy told me the news,” Varric says, running a gloved hand through the hair that had slipped from his ponytail. “I mean, with half the city throwing a party about the Qunari finally being told what for, I was beginning to wonder where you guys were.”

The room falls silent thereafter. Aveline looks like she’s about to say something – she has _that_ smile, but she doesn’t have a chance to speak again before the dwarf takes some short steps closer.

“Hey, Blondie… everyone else is at the Hanged Man for drinks. Place is packed, but we got a table. They’ve even got that brandy you like tonight for a good sovereign. I’d be willing to pay if it’d get you out of here. Your face’ll harden that way if you don’t lighten up. It isn’t as if Hawke has servants for no reason, and it isn’t as if they won’t know where to find us. Oh, and Aveline? You’ll get a kick out of this, that Guardsman, what’s his name…”

“Donnic.”

“Yeah, Donnic. He’s at our table too. And we saved some room for Blondie, Hawke, and you, but it seems we might only need two seats instead of one unless someone can get Choir-boy out of the Chantry for _one_ night of indulgences. Rivaini has two sovereigns to me that I won’t be able to convince him.”

Varric chuckles, and Anders is having trouble listening. He needs to be by Hawke’s side until Hawke is better. If that means sticking around until the Black Citadel ices over, Anders would do it. There wasn’t a chance to fix Karl from being branded Tranquil. There is a chance for Anders to fix Hawke from dying, and he doesn’t want to leave, but even Aveline is giving him hard looks.

“Varric is right, you know,” she says once she’s certain the storyteller is done talking their ears off. “You could use some air. Bodahn is reliable, and the dog would kill a man if it meant Hawke could get help if he needed.”

The mabari in question lifted his head from his paws and gives a sharp whining sound. Anders knows the animal is smart enough to understand the course of conversation, but it hardly makes him feel any better. Anders has always been a cat person, and if he could have created the feline equivalent of mabari during his time at Amaranthine out of Ser Pounce-a-lot, he would have. Cats are better, anyhow. The fact that Mr. Wiggums had been possessed in his time and taken out Templars as a feline abomination, and Ser Pounce-a-lot had fought a Hurlock off by himself, said much about all the cats he’d ever owned. He doesn’t trust Hawke’s mabari to fix problems should they arise. But he does finally agree, begrudgingly, that as soon as Hawke is stitched up and completely safe, he will go with them. Aveline promises Varric to escort him there for some time with friends, and he does go with her as soon as he has a detailed list of instructions for Orana at the ready.

The night following is a blur. Anders remembers the West Hill brandy he used to share with his old Warden companions – namely Oghren, who _always_ won those stupid drinking contests. Old dwarf’s liver must have been forged of veridium. He remembers hands of Wicked Grace that emptied his purse of most everything, being convinced that Isabella was cheating. He remembers feeling still so alone, despite being surrounded by people. He remembers his mind lingering on Hawke, the events of the day prior, the blood, the blades… and eventually slipping away in a fog, gripping at the old Amell estate door, and being helped to a chair by Orana.

When he wakes, come morning, his head is throbbing, but Hawke’s hand is on his cheek, thumb tracing soft lines across his stubble. Anders feels sick, but Hawke is awake.

_Hawke is awake._

Anders straightens, probably too quickly for someone as hungover as he feels. After the dizzy spell, he sees Hawke smiling at him.

“I told you I’m not dying,” he says, that unshakeable determination on his tone. “I… ache, but I’ll be fine. Enough potions and enough rest… and I’ll be up in no time.”

“They’re calling you Champion now,” Anders remembers aloud. “Champion of Kirkwall. A Fereldan refugee now has the highest regard of the Free Marches. Last night… I was wondering if it would just be on your grave.”

He feels the tears first, hot and damp. Though he never willed them to be shed, they just _came to be,_ out of thankfulness and reverence… Anders never has been a religious man, for Andraste and the Maker had been used so much for hate that has ruled his life and harmed people he loved, but there had been moments, at the back of his mind, that he’d prayed. And for once to have those prayers answered when he’d needed it most…

Hawke’s hand curls around his own. “How long did you stay with me?”

“As long as I could – Varric insisted I go out for drinks.”

He laughs, now, and that resonant chuckle had never felt more beautiful on his ears. “I bet if he could have had me halfway to my grave at the Hanged Man, he would. What kind of stories has he been telling of me already? Only the good ones?”

Anders doesn’t know, and Hawke needs yet more rest, but he nods reassuringly. “I imagine so. Last night was fuzzy at best. I think everyone was there, celebrating without you.” A pause. “You know what? How about I get us breakfast from the kitchen… something light.”

There’s a happy glint to Hawke’s deep brown gaze. Anders leaves, and by the time he comes back, Hawke is already asleep again. So Anders eats his own breakfast of hard-boiled egg and fry toast himself, in the quiet paleness of morning, and dutifully mixes elfroot into his lover’s gruel, and wonders, with the viscount dead, what uncertainty will become of Kirkwall.

**Author's Note:**

> More Dragon Age content to come, mostly for Handers because I love them. I'm even going to post my Pathfinder/3.5 module I have planned when that finally rolls around into existence. I'm playing Inquisition at last so I'm full of ideas for new stuff! Can't wait to share it with you guys. 
> 
> Please consider supporting my work elsewhere. Find me on twitter, @caolanvane, where I've got all my links pinned. ;) Thanks for your support.


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